GHERLA of the Armenians and Romanians. — This is the Romanian name of a small town in Transylvania, called Szamos Uyvár in Hungarian and Armenierstadt in German, founded by Armenians who immigrated in the 17th century near a 16th-century castle built by Cardinal Martinuzzi. In 1930 it had approximately 6,700 inhabitants. G. has a beautiful Armenian Catholic church, dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity, formerly a cathedral. Since 1930 it has been the official see of the apostolic administrator of the Armenian Catholics of Romania. In the same year, by virtue of the Concordat with the Holy See, G. ceased to be the see of the bishop of Gherla-Cluj, a diocese founded for the Catholics of the Byzantine-Romanian rite in 1853.
BIBL.: O. G. Lecca, Dictionar istorico-archeologic si geografic al României, Bucurest 1937, p. 630. Federico Tailliez